While we at OSNews often talk about desktops, laptops, and netbooks, there is another "form factor" which is making inroads into various households: the home theatre PC, or HTPC. There are a lot of software packages out there that will aid in turning a computer into an HTPC, and since I've been testing three of them extensively over the past months, I figured we'd talk about what you use.

I used a G4 Cube (450mhz!) for a while, and it did pretty well using VLC Media Player, Transmission, built-in file sharing, web server, etc.. So, there may be no fancy frontend for it, but then again, Front Row isn't too bad and can be extended I think.

I used a G4 Cube (450mhz!) for a while, and it did pretty well using VLC Media Player, Transmission, built-in file sharing, web server, etc.. So, there may be no fancy frontend for it

There's a web-based UI for VLC. My previous roommate had a nice big LCD TV, so we connected an old desktop to it, setup VLC + the HTTP UI, and then used an old laptop (P233 MMX, I think) as a WIFI remote.

Not very elegant, but it was one of those "what can we do with what we have on-hand" situations.